Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Hon. Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, has said that the current state of hardship in Ghana under the New Patriotic Party Government is nothing but a repetition of history that will force Ghanaians to bring back the National Democratic Congress into office.
In an interview, he traced the antecedence of the ruling party and pointed out that anytime they have been in power, they have eventually angered Ghanaians into going back to a leftist party.
“Whether it is the time of Busia or Kufuor, Ghanaians have always ended up gravitating towards the party with the more practical philosophy for the development of the country. A party like NDC, which at the moment is the only party which has demonstrated that it has the practical solutions to save Ghana,” Hon. Bagbin said.
According to him, the reason the NPP has naturally failed to advance the development of Ghana anytime they are in power is that, the ruling party’s political philosophy does not respond to the needs of the country.
“At the heart of the Capitalist philosophy is the thinking that big businesses should be funded so that they in turn can employ others and cause a trickle down effect. The big businesses in this context, are supposed to be multi nationals that manufacture their own products.
“However, the level of development of Ghana at the moment does not fit the ideal conditions for such trickle down effect to happen. We do not really have big multi national businesses that can produce their own products and employ hundreds of thousands or even millions, and so when you channel the money to the very few businesses around, all they do is import, which creates jobs elsewhere and devalue the cedi. This is what the NPP did under Busia, and Kufuor, and this is what the NPP is doing under Akufo-Addo and the result is clear – the gap between the rich and the poor has widened.
“Compare this to the philosophy of the NDC which says that, we need to provide equal opportunities for all and in doing so, we must build a manufacturing base for our country, we must build more schools, we must build more Hospitals etc.
“From President Rawlings to President Mills, to even John Mahama, this is what the NDC has done and that is how come the NDC is responsible for the larger part of our national infrastructure in this country,” Hon. Bagbin said.
He pointed out that the NDC has the highest number of schools built, highest number of hospitals built, has factories such as the Kumasi shoe factory and the Komenda sugar factory to its name while the NPP has none to show.
The NDC, he said, has also been far more helpful to Ghanaian Agricultural sector than the NPP. “We gave free fertilizers to Cocoa farmers for instance, the NPP is selling them now to the same farmers.”
In terms of the Economy, he pointed out that anytime the NDC is in power, the country’s macro-economic performance is better, saying Ghana’s international reserves and import cover always looks better when the NDC is in power, and depreciates when the NPP is in power.
“Today, the cedi is freefalling like nobody’s business. In spite of the intent to inject 3billion dollars into it, it has just been announced that after the kenkey party they held to celebrate its brief stability, it has began slipping again. Things like this don’t happen under NDC.
“When they were in opposition and we were in power, they complained about us borrowing. Today, after just two years in office, of course, they have borrowed ten times more than we borrowed in 8 years. But what is even more disappointing is that, while we had done smart borrowing by borrowing to build infrastructure such as the Atuabo gas pipeline which will gradually generate money to pay for itself, they have borrowed and just consumed.
“When we were in power under President Mills, we maintained inflation at single digit for almost a year,” Hon. Bagbin added.
He said he could go on and on, including the fact that it was the Mills Government which ushered Ghana into Middle income status. “The evidence is there for all to see, only NDC has moved this country forward anytime we are in power. Only NDC can save Ghana.”
